I am often asked, “What are you doing, Brainard? What kind of art do you make now?” Here is the answer in a form that hopefully makes sense, this is a work in progress.
The Parallel Art World (PAL) is a project that my wife and I are exploring as a new system for art exchange and exhibitions. We collaborate on all art we make under the name Praxis. Here is our latest, though that is also the beginning of a new project
The Parallel Art World (PAL)
There is a world that can be made by artists and for artists and it can survive by means of sheer will. It will be financed by our dreams and it could run on a fuel we can’t see and it will transcend what we know of as reality, because it is art, it is a world that is open to you and it is a world made by you because there are no leaders or tastemakers, only artists.
This is a secret society—which means it can be printed on this page and read by almost anyone, but some will see a new door open, or they will hear a voice or have a sudden enthusiasm. They are reading between the lines on this page, these lines which are a guide but not a set of instructions to enter PAL.
The Parallel Art World is like a cult or secret society without a leader; imagine a space that everyone shares and all art is hung, music is played, poetry is read, meals are served, but none of it is familiar, and there is a place to rest. 196 MAKING IT IN THE ART WORLD
Imagine a laboratory with an alchemist and that alchemist is you. Imagine you are experimenting.
This is physical and it is not. There are no defined boundaries and no one makes the rules including the writer of this.
To enter into this world you only need to desire it and if you do, you already are there.
Are you in?
If you answered yes, the next words are—welcome here.
You are now a part of the parallel art world, a place where anything does happen because it is free of rules and structure.
Which means that now we are all creating this new parallel art world together. What is it? A website, a new software, an alchemical storefront! Maybe a new language, a new way of writing, a new way of buying or exchanging art?
We have established a domain as a public repository of ideas of what the parallel art world should include or become or avoid. This will grow organically without anyone at the helm, this site is only for conversation, to grow the seeds of the ideas which are sure to germinate around the world to grow something new and unexpected.
We are cultivating the earth together so that art can grow in new forms and new ways.
—Praxis